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To me, this movie is perfection.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Taking a look on BBC iPlayer,I spotted an intriguing title from Roman Polanski. Greatly enjoying his 2010 movie The Ghost Writer,I got set to witness Polanski's screen carnage.The plot:After their kids Zachary Cowan & Ethan Longstreet get in a fight,parents Michael and Penelope Longstreet invite Nancy and Alan Cowan round to clear the matter in their flat. Agreeing to write a letter about what the boys have done, the couples soon begin to reveal their true feelings on the other couple,and of each other.View on the film:Filmed in real time,co-writer/(along with Yasmina Reza and Michael Katims) director Roman Polanski and cinematographer Pawel Edelman display a fine eye for physical Comedy,with Polanski showing a surprising gleefulness in covering the apartment with broken phones and vomit. Based on co-writer Yasmina Reza's one-set play,the writers lock the flat in an absurdist atmosphere,where every attempt the Cowan's make to leave the flat causes the arguments to become more ridiculous.Whilst the peculiar behaviour of the couples is peeled open,the writers never go beyond the bleeding heart Liberal and sharp dressed businessman suffice,that causes the film to run out of steam,due to the characters not being built up well enough to make the jet-black Comedy games fully hit their targets.Cast as a shining Liberal elite, Jodie Foster disappointingly gives an overcooked performance as Penelope,due to Foster's stage-bound manner ruining Penelope's Liberal chic with shrieks that aim for the absurd, but just run cold. Playing the notes that Foster misses, Christoph Waltz and John C. Reilly give great performances as Michael Longstreet and Alan Cowan,thanks to the guys keeping Cowan's work obsession and Longstreet's off-the-cuff manners intact, even as their conversations get more off-beat,whilst Kate Winslet throws up a wonderfully catty performance as Nancy,as the full carnage starts to kick in.

A one-act play, centring on two sets of parents in a Brooklyn apartment discussing a violent episode between their children, sandwiched between a very short, speech-free prologue and epilogue as credits roll. The ostensibly liberal but clearly uptight mother and apparently more conciliatory but hen-pecked father of the victim invite the aggressor's parents (she overtly more community-spirited, he more put out as he manages a work crisis on his mobile) over to talk about the incident, as responsible adults, but the ensuing clash of attitudes prompts a descent into the sort of puerile behaviour that was precisely the intended subject of the conversation. Well cast, the four players interpret the sharp, witty lines with aplomb, one's sympathies leaping around from character to character as they gradually unravel, but without ever settling anywhere for long as each in turn cedes any moral high ground as quickly as they gained it. There is scorn aplenty (subtle and blatant) as rivalries and alliances are repeatedly struck and dashed. One can forgive the improbability of the meeting surviving several junctures when it would more naturally end because the dialogue continues to give. I guess you can't go far wrong with such a script in the hands of this director and group of actors and it makes for a very watchable film, although I'm guessing the stage is its real home and I'll look out for it there.

Two boys get into an incident in a NYC park. Zachary Cowan hits Ethan Longstreet in the face with a stick. The parents Nancy (Kate Winslet) and Alan Cowan (Christoph Waltz) meet the overly friendly Penelope (Jodie Foster) and Michael Longstreet (John C. Reilly). Just as the Cowans leave, the Longstreets offer them coffee. They stay and start a conversation that goes to unexpected places.This story feels very manufactured. The Cowans are out of the apartment time and time again. They return for the flimsiest of excuses. People actually say "Nobody is forcing you to stay." Yet they stay. These people don't feel real but actually some kind of construction. The great actors are trying but they don't seem fully human. Director Roman Polanski keeps the camera moving in the limited space but it all feels stagy. None of it feels fun. The characters lack likability. The audience is stuck with these people for far too long even with the short run time.

'Carnage' is a play filmed by none less than Roman Polanski, although one assumes he personally didn't oversee the location-setting shots in Brooklyn, New York. But it is in some senses a very American story, a pair of affluent liberal couples meet up to discuss amicably a conflict that has taken place between their children, and end up descending into a pit of mutual fury and bile. But the overall structure is forced: the natural thing to do when you can't reason with someone is to walk away, especially if you take particular pride in thinking of yourself as civilised. Without a locked room, the story makes less sense. And while it aspires to be a scathing satire on the pretensions of the privileged classes, most people are pretty partisan when it comes to their children. The film thus ends up as the tale of four not very nice people having an extended argument, full stop. Listening to them is one way you can pass eighty minutes of your own life, but you might find you have superior alternatives.